When Aquafil began manufacturing carpet fiber almost 50 years ago, sustainability wasn’t an option but a must. Doing business in the Lake Garda region of Italy, where environmental protection has always been top priority, meant constantly innovating to keep up with strict mandates on noise, water, and air pollution. “Preserving the environment is in our DNA,” says Giulio Bonazzi, President and CEO of what is now the second largest worldwide supplier of Nylon 6 yarn for carpet producers like Interface and Desso. A timeline of unprecedented milestones, including the recovery and reuse of all their own internal production waste, has led to their most important environmental undertaking to date: the Econyl Recycling Project.

Keeping our tootsies pampered during midnight trips to the bathroom is a job any carpet can handle. But clean the air of all that icky stuff floating around that we know is there but glad we can’t see? According to Dutch carpet manufacturer Desso, their new carpet line AirMaster can greatly reduce the concentration of that microscopic particulate matter to improve indoor air quality eight times better than hardwood floors. Tall claim, but they have several independent studies backing it up.

*Leave one comment per person through the end of Wednesday, June 8, 2011, to be considered for a random giveaway of one Tigressá area rug from Shaw Floors.

Last year Shaw Floors sent us a sample kit of their new Tigressá SoftStyle carpet, which is made with recyclable Nylon 6 and designed for durable, long-life performance. In celebration of the one year anniversary of the launch, Shaw sent us an 8′ x 10′ area rug called A Touch Too Much, the number one selling style in Tigressá, and gave us an extra to give away today.

Last month, Shaw invited a number of bloggers to Atlanta for the launch of a new carpet product called Tigressá SoftStyle. While we were invited, we were not able to participate, so the company sent us a sample kit for review. The kit includes a new patch and one that’s been tested with 20,000 steps, and they’re both just as soft — I can’t tell a difference between the two. Hence, the tagline: The Softer, Stronger Carpet.